The Adventures Of Ferdinand Count Fathom Pdf is a Classic Fiction novel By Tobias Smollett.
The Adventures Of Ferdinand Count Fathom Book Summary
The hero of “Ferdinand Count Fathom” (1753) is a monster of treachery and fraud. Fate and coincidence play a large part in his picaresque progress through England and Europe, and much of the narrative is written in a mock-heroic style.
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About Tobias Smollett Author of The Adventures Of Ferdinand Count Fathom Pdf Book
Tobias Smollet Author of The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom Pdf was born in Dalquhurn, now part of Renton, Scotland, to a prosperous family and educated at the University of Glasgow, where he studied to be a physician. Later he joined the British Royal Navy as a surgeon’s mate. He was present at the disastrous battle against the Spanish at Cartagena in 1741.
He married a British woman Anne Lascelles, in Jamaica, 1747,and settled in England. In London, as a writer, he became successful. The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748), a picaresque novel – like most of his books – made him a well known author. It was followed by The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle in 1751. But the failure of The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom (1753) caused financial difficulties for him. Publishing The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves (1762) didn’t help.
Writing poems, plays, travel and history books, essays, satires, doing translations and even becoming a literary critic and magazine editor, Dr. Smollett struggled all his short life against poverty, he traveled to Italy, to regain his health, but died of tuberculosis near Livorno, in 1771. Ironically finishing his masterpiece, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, a few months before his death. Charles Dickens was a great admirer of Tobias Smollett, even visiting his gravesite.
The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom pdf, Paperback, Hardcover Book Information
- Publisher : Penguin Classics (July 3, 1990)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 512 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0140433074
- ISBN-13 : 978-0140433074
- Item Weight : 10.9 ounces
- Dimensions : 7 x 1 x 5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #6,068,358 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #213,413 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews: 4.7 out of 5 stars 13 ratings
The Adventures Of Ferdinand Count Fathom Book Review
4.0 out of 5 stars Smollet’s Vile Hero is Difficult to Resist
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 16, 2013
Having a fondness for Smollett, it was a pleasant surprise to come across this Penguin PB in a used bookstore. I hadn’t encountered the book before having read Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker and Roderick Random.
I’m not sure if Smollett is now considered an obscure author, as such it may be unintendedly accurate to call this one of his obscure novels, but I digress.
It is difficult to describe the experience the reader is in for with this book because it is chockablock full of so very much conflicting, complementary and deeply enmeshed material.
This is a morality play and rip snorting yarn, a crime novel a love story, a social commentary, a satirical play, a drama and perhaps even an erotic novel.
The action revolves around the lives of two ‘crib brothers.’ one a perfect angel who can do little wrong and the other a perfect devil who gladly does little but wrong. Action plays out from the Austro-Hungarian Empire west to the British Isles with a cast of characters that includes all manner of con man, sharper, loan shark, charlatan, innocent virgin, guilty virgin and many women who should know better and do.
There is also a plethora of death, deceit, seduction, heartache, skullduggery, nobility, outrage, desperation, revellry and some humor to boot.
As I said, this is a difficult book to describe. It does wind on a bit, and gets a bit maudlin when it does so it does become a bit of chore to finish. STILL, this is definitely a book worth reading as the best bits in it will have you hating the hero so much that you just want to stop reading because his bad deeds are so bad they make one feel positively ill. It is this evility that likely causes Smollett to get a bit mawkish near the end, in order to atone for his sins.
What especially struck me about the novel is its depiction of a society that is remarkably like ours in many, painful and actually surprising ways.
On a very real level, it caused me to realize why Communism wasn’t a paticularly appealing ideology to the citizens of Gt. Britain, and also to marvel at the amount of truck between the various ‘nations’ of europe at that time.
Smollett feels very familiar to me, I doubt he will to an American in another 50 years. Our culture is changing rapidly. I wonder who that somebody is presently composing the thesis that will affect the world as ‘The Wealth of Nations’ and ‘Communist Manifesto’ have. I can feel it.
5.0 out of 5 stars A scholar’s triumph, too.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 3, 2000
The texts of many Eighteenth Century books are full of interpolations by printers and may contain thousands of edits by the author, too. What Dr. Brack does in his scholarly editions is identify and evaluate EVERY variant to assemble a DEFINITIVE TEXT. He spent a lifetime tracking down what Smollett actually wrote. If you want to know what Smollet wrote, not his printer, read an edition that Dr. Brack has collated; they’re triumphs of scholarship as well as a service to readers.
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